This invention relates to capturing visual and audio media. In particular, the invention relates to converting the captured media into compressed digitized media data in a media format that is immediately streamable.
Audio and video are often generically called xe2x80x9cmultimediaxe2x80x9d or simply xe2x80x9cmedia.xe2x80x9d A presently popular xe2x80x9cmediaxe2x80x9d application is to digitize audio and video clips. Typically, media is digitized using a video capture application.
A video capture application converts analog video signals, such as those generated by a video camera, into a digital format and then stores the digital video on a computer""s mass storage system. Typically, video capture from analog devices requires a special video capture card that converts the analog signals into digital form and compresses the data.
Alternatively, external video capture devices exist that capture video signals from an attached camera and transfers them to a computer via a communications cable. The external video capture devices are often desirable because they are easier to install and use than internal devices. Therefore, they are usually preferred by a less-experienced computer user.
Examples of such external video capture devices include xe2x80x9cQuickClipxe2x80x9d by Logitech; xe2x80x9cInVideo USB Capturexe2x80x9d by Focus Enhancements; xe2x80x9cInterView USBxe2x80x9d by Interex, Inc.; and xe2x80x9cUSB Live! Video Adapterxe2x80x9d by Nogatech Inc.
When an external device is used, the media (i.e., video and audio) signal is typically compressed within the external device before the signal is sent to the coupled computer. The signal is compressed because the communications connection between the device and the computer typically has a limited bandwidth. The computer-device interface normally cannot transmit the uncompressed media signal at the rate that the device receives the signal. Compressing the media signal allows it to flow smoothly across the limited-bandwidth connection to the computer.
If the computer-device interface was capable of transmitting the uncompressed media signal, the signal may overwhelm many existing computers. They are simply not powerful enough to process such a large amount of data in such a short time period.
Most of the conventional, external, video-capture devices use a proprietary media-compressing scheme. They proprietarily compress the media data and transmit it to the computer. The computer simply stores the proprietarily compressed media data into a file. Alternatively, using proprietary software on the computer, the media data is decompressed. After the media data is decompressed, it is recompressed and stored using a standard media file format, such as MPEG, QuickTime, or Windows Media Format (which is also called ASF for Advanced Streaming Format).
The media data is recompressed to save space on the computer""s mass storage system. The media data is stored in a standard media file format so that it may usable by a large array of general-purpose media applications.
The streaming-media input port provides an inexpensive way to get a video signal from an audio/video device (such as a camcorder) into a personal computer in a convenient streamable media format (e.g., Windows Media Format). This streaming-media input port is an external hardware device that captures media content (i.e., video and audio) input, compresses it, converts it to an immediately streamable media (ISM) format, and sends it to a coupled computer for immediate storage or use. Such a use is transmission over the Internet to a streaming media player. This use allows for a xe2x80x9clivexe2x80x9d transmission from a typical analog video camera.
The computer receiving media data in the ISM format from the streaming-media input port does not need to decompress and recompress the media data. It may directly save to storage or transmit to the streaming media player. It may do so without any modifications to the format of the media data.